TOM.com mailboxes bought by Li Ka-shing for $20 million will start charging soon!

On August 12, TOM mailbox released an announcement: due to the adjustment of mailbox business, free mailbox service will be stopped on September 13, 2024, and the mailbox account will not be able to log in after September 27, during which users can log in mail.tom.com to back up important emails.

During this period, users can log in mail.tom.com to backup important emails, and after September 27th, all emails in mailboxes will be cleared.

The stopping service is only for free mailbox users, while the lowest package price of paid service is 15 RMB/month. For many netizens, TOM mailbox has a very important significance, and many people's first mailbox is “TOM”, so the slogan of TOM sticker is: one of the earliest brands of Chinese mailboxes and one of the most frequently used e-mail service providers.

mail.tom.com

TOM mailbox was officially launched in March 1998 and has been running for 26 years. It is an enterprise invested by Li Ka-shing's (Hutchison Whampoa Limited and Cheung Kong Holdings Limited).

The domain name Tom.com was acquired by Li Ka-shing in 1999 for HK$3 million and 3% option (about HK$20 million), and it was packaged and listed, successfully setting a record for IPO subscription in Hong Kong at that time.

In December 2017, TOM Mail announced that the number of users of its seven mailbox sub-brands, including free version (tom.com), vip paid version (163.net, 163vip.com and vip.tom.com) and enterprise version (qiye.tom.com), had reached hundreds of millions.

vip.tom.com

It is worth mentioning that the domain name of “163.net” mailbox is similar to that of NetEase's domain name “163.com”, which looks like a copycat version. In fact, the two domain names have a twisted story.

Before 2000, TOM was originally unknown, the domain name 163.net which was applied by Ding Lei was firstly transferred to Guangzhou Telecom at the price of 200,000 RMB, and then sold to Shenzhen Xinfei Company at the price of 50 million RMB by Guangzhou Telecom, and then transferred to TOM at the price of 370 million Hong Kong Dollars (about 340 million RMB according to the exchange rate at present).

163.net

With the momentum of 163.net, TOM jumped to the fourth largest portal site in China, but 163.net's momentum was so great that it completely took over TOM. As a result, TOM's management changed the name of 163.net, and there were repeated failures or spam “bursts” of negative surroundings, plus in 2001, TOM announced that its 163.net new registered users need to charge to use, resulting in a significant decrease in the number of registered users.

Two years later, 163.net completely transformed into a mail channel under TOM's website, and the website's mail channel was vigorously publicized as TOM.com.

From this case, we can see that domain name plays a crucial role in brand promotion. Take the three-letter domain name “TOM.com” as an example, it has the same pronunciation with “Tom Cat”, which is very easy to be remembered and have associations. Similarly, the three-digit domain name “163.net” is very similar to NetEase's “163”, which is highly memorable and recognizable. Short numeric domain names are not only easy to enter, but also enhance brand visibility and communication. A clear and concise domain name can effectively enhance brand recognition and make the brand more easily remembered and accessed by users. These cases fully illustrate the key role of a good domain name in enhancing brand awareness and attracting users.